From: Emlyn O'Regan (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Thu Sep 14 2000 - 13:07:23 MDT
WANT WANT WANT WANT
Fantastic find Hal. The cutting edge of robotic teleoperation.
It's actually cheaper than I thought it would be ($US5K).
Very cool; a wireless webserver on wheels, so you can control it through a
web front end. Although I'm sure thats a bastard to use; I don't know why
they didn't build special purpose client software for it; you'd think that
would have to be better for the user.
It really should have a speaker and microphone; it seems pretty useless
without those, and hey, after giving it a camera on a neck, how easy would
audio have been?
Do you think if you used this thing routinely for work, that anyone could
take you seriously? It would be like working with K-9 from Doctor Who.
I hope we see more of this kind of thing.
Emlyn
----- Original Message -----
From: <hal@finney.org>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2000 3:03 AM
Subject: Re: The Future of Work
> Nick writes,
> > I'm planning to talk about virtual reality: how teleworking may become
> > popular when VR gets good enough that you can get those social
> > interactions with office mates that seem to be so essential. When that
> > stage is reached (I'm reckon this could implemented on a large scale in
> > about fifteen years) then there seems to be no reason why anybody who
> > works only with information would need to be physically present in the
> > office. Life guards on beaches etc. are a different matter, since it is
> > doubtful that robots will be good enough and cheap enough to replace
> > manual labour within that time scale.
>
> We had an interesting thread here a few days ago about using tele-operated
> robots for vacation or business purposes. Combining your VR at work
> idea suggests wheeled robots roaming the halls, a monitor on the front
> with your smiling face in place, camera mounted so that it can interact
> with people and it's just like being there. You could go to meetings,
> and the table would have some chairs and some spaces for the wheeled
> robots to roll up to. Maybe you could even put an arm on the robot and
> it could carry a coffee cup or shake hands with important clients.
>
> See http://www.irobot.com for something that could evolve into this. It's
> got the wheels, it's got the camera (with a wireless webcam interface).
> Just add a monitor or at least a speaker so you can talk through it
> (you could paste your picture on the front) and you're all set. Maybe
> just a cell phone with a speaker phone attachment?
>
> I might even get one and try to get the office up in SJ to let it wander
> around. The biggest problem would be getting the IS department to open
> up the corporate firewall for the webcam.
>
> Hal
>
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